Greencore forced to recruit staff from Hungary

Bronya Smolen
· 10 November, 2014

Greencore:

the sandwich company are to employ from abroad

(Photo: )

Sandwich maker Greencore Group has hit the headlines this morning after the Daily Mail revealed it had been forced to look for workers in Eastern Europe for its new factory because Britons won’t do the job.

According to the newspaper report, headlined ‘Is there no one left in Britain who can make a sandwich?’, Greencore bosses are making the journey to Hungary this morning to recruit new staff for the new factory in Northampton, which is due to open in 2016.

The firm, which makes around 430 million sandwiches a year and supplies sandwiches to Marks & Spencer, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Asda, admitted that it would have to recruit the majority of the 300 workers it needs from overseas. It said this was due to people in the UK being unenthusiastic about the job roles.

Allyson Russell, Greencore’s human resources director, told the paper that the company had tried to recruit in the UK, but that it was “not always the kind of work” people wanted to do.

A Greencore spokesperson said: “Greencore employs around 1,100 colleagues in Northampton and is currently looking to recruit a number of new staff.

“We have already started a range of recruitment initiatives locally and have been pleased with the response.”

The new £35million factory is due to open in early 2016 in in Northampton.

The average wage in Hungary is just over £7,000. Even if workers coming here were on the minimum wage, they would earn almost double that at £13,520 a year.

The sandwich company completed the disposal of its foodservice desserts business, Ministry of Cake this year, for upfront cash consideration of £8m and deferred consideration of up to £3m.